"Webbiquity" is about being everywhere online when and where buyers are looking for what you sell. It's what I help B2B clients achieve through a coordinated strategy of SEO, search marketing, social media, brand management, content marketing, and influencer relations, supported by the right marketing technology.

After writing 60+ additional blog posts since October, I find these lessons even more important today than back then.

In Taekwondo, students are taught they must perform each kick at least 1,000 times before they can safely say they have learned the kick perfectly.

I’m not sure I craft “perfect” blog posts even after writing 1,000 of them—but I’ve certainly learned a few things.

(For the record: I wrote 440 posts on the Blogger-based WebMarketCentral blog between 2005 and 2010, and have now published 560 posts here on Webbiquity. Hence, 440+560=1,000. It’s true there have been guest posts published here, but those have been balanced out by posts I’ve written for other blogs.)

Digital marketing activities and budgets are growing, because they have an impact: more than half of all employed adults say that “digital media has changed the way they work.” The ability to analyze the vast amounts of data generated by digital marketing activities, and translate that analysis into digital marketing strategies and tactics, will be key skills for marketers in the next decade.

Image credit: AdWeek

Here are four more key takeaways based on the digital marketing facts and statistics presented below:

• Digital marketing (and customer service) are growing… Companies spent, on average, 25% of total marketing budgets on digital in 2014. But that figure is projected to jump to 75% within the next five years. And while less than a third of customer service interactions took place online last year, volume is expected to grow 53% this year.

• …because it matters to buyers. 80% of consumers do “a lot” of online research for major purchase decisions, and 46% say they count on social media when making such choices.

• But getting results isn’t easy. Digital marketers spend more than half of their online advertising dollars on direct response goals, yet consistently generating leads or revenue remains one of their top two challenges.

• Rethink display? Marketers in the U.S. will spend nearly $24 billion on online display advertising this year, and 59% of CMOs view display ads as an effective marketing channel. But with their low click-through rate, display ads make sense only if they support other measures of digital success, such as brand awareness.

You’ll find more insights in these 14 dazzling digital marketing facts and statistics.

14 Digital Marketing Stats and Facts

2. 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision. (Marissa’s Picks)

3. 38% of companies will hire more digital marketing professionals in the coming year. But about half of those positions will be filled by temporary or contract help, not full-time employees. (MediaPost)

7. 42% of CMOs say that analytics skills will become a core competence in marketing (really – only 42%?); 27% believe earned media will become more important than paid or owned media. (AdWeek)

8. Despite their low click-through rate, 59% of CMOs view online display ads as an effective marketing channel. 56% say the same for social media. (AdWeek)

9. 54% of responding companies spent less than $1 million per annum on digital marketing in 2014. At the other end of the scale, 4% of companies spent more than $100 million. (MarketingProfs)

10. Less than one-third of customer service interactions took place online last year (social media, chat or email), but that volume is expected grow 53% in the coming year. (i-SCOOP)

11. Asked to name their number-one challenge, 15% of digital marketers said “meeting the expectations of the always-connected customer,” 14% chose “executing consistent campaigns that drive desired business outcomes” (i.e., leads or revenue) and 13% cited the proliferation of channels across paid, owned and earned media. (B2B Marketing Insider)

12. Companies spent, on average, 10% of total revenue on marketing in 2014. 25% of total budgets were spent on digital marketing, with 51% of companies planning larger budgets for 2015. (Information Management)

14. Roughly half of all employed online adults also said digital media has changed the way they work, including the number of people they have contact with (51% of respondents) and the number of hours they work (35%). (MediaPost)

This was post #7 of Marketing Stats Summer (#statssummer) on Webbiquity.

Business and consumer marketers are nearly unanimous in their belief in the importance of social media to marketing activities. As noted below, the money is following that belief: social media now accounts for about 11% of all digital marketing outlays, and spending on social media marketing will total nearly $10 billion this year.

Still, marketers sometimes struggle with strategy, tactics, and measurement in social media marketing. Here are five actionable takeaways from the two-and-a-half dozen noteworthy social media marketing and PR statistics and facts presented below:

Image credit: i-SCOOP

Be responsive. People expect to hear back from the brands they interact with on Twitter and other social networks. And when they report a problem or issue, they expect to hear back quickly: 53% of consumers on Twitter expect a response within the hour. Furthermore, nearly half of all social media users share content with their friends, family and co-workers at least weekly; so if they have a bad experience with your brand, the word is likely to spread.

Strategize and measure. 88% of marketers believe social media marketing is important, and 75% of consumers say they use social media in the buying process. Yet nearly half of marketers only “somewhat agree” that analyzing social media engagement can help improve the bottom line. The key to making social media marketing effective at the business level is to have a strategy in place and measure key performance indicators. Unfortunately, strategy and measurement are cited as the top two challenges faced by social media marketers. They aren’t easy, but those who get these two areas right will succeed.

Know your market (B2B). Twitter is the place to engage with companies: While just 20 of the of Fortune 500 companies actually engage with their customers on Facebook, 83% have a presence on Twitter—as do 76% of the NASDAQ 100, 100% of Dow Jones companies, and 92% of the S&P 500. For reaching top executives though, LinkedIn is the place to be. Though only 32% of Fortune 500 CEOs have a presence on any major social network, the majority of those (25% of the total) are on LinkedIn. And 59% of executives prefer video content to text.

Know your market (B2C): Nearly three-quarters of adult Internet users in the U.S. are active on at least one social network (predominantly Facebook)—but not all use social media the same way or have the same expectations. For example, while just 2% of all consumers prefer social media over other channels for customer service, 27% of Gen Y-ers favor it. On the other hand, consumers aged 55-64 are more than twice as likely to engage with brand content as those younger than 28. Older social media users favor Facebook and Pinterest; the 34-and-under crowd dominates on Tumblr and Instagram.

Get social PR right. While journalists are open to connecting with and being contacted by PR pros using social media, they prefer email for pitches and follow up. But 76% of journalists say they feel pressure to think about their story’s potential for sharing on social media platforms—so make sure that’s part of the pitch.

There’s much more in this collection of two and half dozen sensational social media marketing and social PR facts and statistics.

16 Social Media Marketing Stats

1. People ages 55-64 are more than twice as likely to engage with a brands’ content than those 28 or younger. (Social Media Today)

3. On average, social media accounts for 11% of digital marketing spending. (MarketingProfs)

4. 72% of adult internet users in the U.S. are now active on at least one social network, up from 67% in 2012. (Marissa’s Picks)

5. More than 70% of users expect to hear back from the brand they’re interacting with on Twitter, and 53% want a response within the hour. (Marissa’s Picks)

6. 49% of people say they share online content they like with friends, family or co-workers at least weekly. (Ber|Art)

Image credit: Ber|Art

7. 86% of marketers believe that social media is important for their business. (Ber|Art)

8. U.S. spending on social media marketing will reach $9.7 billion in 2015. (MediaPost)

9. Although 88% of marketers believe social media marketing is important, nearly half (48%) only “somewhat agree” that analyzing social media engagement can help improve the bottom line, and 15% don’t think analyzing social engagement matters at all. (eMarketer)

10. The top four challenges faced by social media marketers worldwide are assessing the effectiveness of social media activities (cited by 67% of marketers); designing an overall social media strategy (62%); making social media data actionable (61%); and educating staff on how to use social media (59%). (eMarketer)

11. Product/brand recommendations on social media mean more to younger people. 28% of those aged 18-34 say they are “very” or “fairly” likely to make a purchase based on a friend’s social media post, while just 33% say they are “not at all likely” to do so. The first figure gets smaller and the second larger with age; among those 65 and over, just 4% are likely to make a purchase based on a social media recommendation, while 78% are not at all likely. (Heidi Cohen)

12. 75% of customers say they use social media as part of the buying process. (Biznology)

13. 56% of marketers do not use any form of paid promotions on social media. (Cision)

14. Consumers may use social media for customer service, but they don’t love it. Although 67% of consumers have already used a company’s social media channel for customer service, just 2% say they prefer it over other options. Phone and email remain the most popular channels (66% combined). (MediaPost)

16. Facebook and Pinterest are among the “oldest” social networks in terms of their member demographics; 63% of U.S. Facebook users and 58% of those on Pinterest are age 35 and older. On the other hand, the 34-and-under crowd dominate on Tumblr (just over 50%) and Instagram (60%). Twitter is more balanced. (Social Media Today)

6 Social PR Statistics and Facts

17. While many journalists say they’d like PR pros to contact them via social media, less than half of PR practitioners have successfully pitched a journalist or outlet via social. So while engaging on social is a great add-on, traditional methods such as using a media database to target specific beats remains ever-important. (Cision)

18. The top three measures used by PR pros to show social media success increased website traffic (64%), increased engagement (61%) and increased followers (59%). (Cision)

19. 88% of PR professionals say their businesses or clients regularly engage on Facebook—more than any other social media platform. Twitter came in a close second at 85%. (Cision)

21. 76% of journalists say they feel pressure to think about their story’s potential for sharing on social media platforms. 64% say they prefer that follow-up on “pitches” be done via email rather than phone. (BentoBox Media)

22. When using video, 74% of journalists prefer content created by their own organizations. Just 3% use corporate / branded videos. (BentoBox Media)

6 Facts and Stats About Executive and Enterprise Social Media Use

23. Just 32% of Fortune 500 CEOs have a presence on any of the major social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram). Most of those have a presence on only one platform, with the majority (25.4% of the total) on LinkedIn. Mark Zuckerberg is the only Fortune 500 CEO on all five major social networks — and he owns two of them. (MediaPost)

25. Just 20 of the Fortune 100 comnpanies actually engage with their customers on Facebook. (i-SCOOP) [IMAGE maybe – good one – social customer service]

26. On a company level, 83% of the Fortune 500 had a Twitter presence in 2014, up from 77% the year before. 80% were on Facebook, up from 70%. (Sword and the Script)

27. Among 500 of the largest U.S. companies, Cisco and HP score first and second in their use of social media for corporate communications. But Facebook is only number 242, and Apple comes in 416th place. According to research by Investis, “Facebook was marked down because it did not engage with its corporate audience using the other social media platforms reviewed. Even on its own platform, Facebook’s investor relations page fell well short of best practice. For example, it does not use videos or hashtags and it does not appear to have responded to any of the posts left by users.” (Virtual Press Office)

28. Only 76% of Nasdaq 100 companies maintain a corporate Twitter account which compares with 100% of the Dow Jones and 92% of the S&P 100. (Virtual Press Office)

3 SMB Social Media Marketing Stats

29. 75% of SMBs use social media to promote their businesses–more than any other media category. (MediaPost)

30. Social media is not only number one in terms of utilization by SMBs, it is also number one in share of SMB media spending (21% of total media budgets). (MediaPost)

31. In the average firm of 100-500 employees, seven people are involved in a buying decision. (Biznology)

This was post #5 of Marketing Stats Summer (#statssummer) on Webbiquity.

75% of customers say they use social media as part of the buying process1, and 88% of marketing professionals believe social media is important to their companies2. Yet social media accounts for just 11% of digital marketing budgets3, on average, and 56% of marketers don’t do any paid promotion on social media4.

Can’t get enough of stats like those? Then you’ll love the next seven sizzling summer weeks (except for the week after Independence Day in the U.S., when no one’s really paying attention), starting tomorrow, of posts containing dozens of fascinating stats and facts about digital marketing, social networks, SEO, email / mobile, content marketing and more.

Along the lines of this spring’s blogging for business series here, this series will share findings and insights from some of the top minds and voices in digital and web marketing, including Heidi Cohen, Michael Brenner, Marissa Pick, Frank Strong, Shelly Kramer, and Lee Odden.

The reporting and revelations kick off tomorrow with 34 Compelling Content Marketing Stats and Facts.

While social media marketing has become commonplace, questions about how to optimize the use of social channels and networks, and how to stand out from the crowd, remain.

Image credit: KISSmetrics

The post 23 Outstanding Social Media Marketing Guides, published here a few weeks ago, answered questions about social media trends, the evolution of social media marketing best practices, and how to optimize use of visual content.

This follow-up post answers several more, such as: what are the best social networks for b2b social media marketing? What are the best and worst times to post updates? How can different networks be used most effectively for lead generation? Which tactics work best today for building a social media following and growing traffic?

Find the answers to those questions and others here in 19 more outstanding social media marketing guides from the past year.

Marissa Pick (no relation, though I joke that she’s my adopted cousin) outlines a handful of rules for successful B2B social media marketing, among them “knowing what to do is just as important as knowing what not to do” (“Every social media campaign needs a strategy, and it’s crucial to understand your goals. Knowing what you want to accomplish and how you will measure success is crucial before you launch any campaign”), “engagement = essential,” and “know your audience.”

Michael Brenner examines findings from Adobe regarding the top social networks for business in the view of CMOs, based on their value for SEO, brand awareness, customer communication, and traffic generation. In addition to the “Big Four,” the findings and associated infographic looked at SlideShare (the “new kid on the block”) as well as “niche players” Google+, Pinterest and Instagram.

Jayson DeMers details seven factors to consider when determining where to focus social media marketing efforts (such as conversions and customer value: “Do visitors bounce immediately off your page, or are they reading your content, amplifying your message and becoming customers? A…detailed analysis can help you determine not only which networks are sending you traffic, but which ones are sending you valuable traffic”) along with seven types of social networks to leverage.

This presentation provides dozens of one-sentence (mostly) social media tips from top experts inlcuding Rebekah Radice, Robert Caruso (“In social media, content leads to conversations, conversations build relationships, and relationships result in ROI”), Kim Garst, Mike Stelzner (“Study your competition and watch where they participate in social dialog. Don’t reinvent the wheel”), and Ann Handley among others.

Randy Krum displays a pair of infographics illustrating the best and worst times to post on social media. The worst times seem generally intuitive (e.g., Facebook between midnight and 8:00 a.m.), though a few are odd (don’t post to LinkedIn during the workday?!). The best times, meanwhile, are shown in pretty short windows (e.g., Twitter between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.). Interesting – though your mileage may vary.

Nichole Kelly dives into research findings from Social Media Examiner showing that more than a third of marketers now say they are able to measure ROI from social media activities; but 88% say they “want to know how to measure the ROI from social media” (so, a quarter of marketers say they can measure social ROI, but also don’t know how?); that half of marketers say they’ve seen improved sales from social media; and other interesting facts and stats, including my favorite: “85% of marketers have NO plans to use Snapchat. (Thank goodness!).”

Heidi Cohen passes along guidance on “the best way to use social media to generate leads” from 22 social media experts including Michael Brenner, Jeff Cohen, Jason Falls, Neal Schaffer (“The best way to generate leads is to utilize sponsored posts on the relevant social media platform where your customers are utilizing best practices for that platform. Social networks are in business and want you to be successful in your advertising”), and Deb Weinstein.

Brian Honigman presents 10 infographics covering everything from how to create the “perfect” post on various social media platforms and how to size profile images for popular social networks to social media facts and figures (hmm, that sounds familiar), user growth trends across platforms, and the best and worst times to post on social media sites.

Melonie Dodaro shares sever highly useful tips for finding people who are sharing your content, discovering who is mentioning your brand or products, finding influencers in your industry, and find “super-targeted” followers such as who is following a particular person or brand and lives in a specific city.

Noting that “Each social media operates a bit differently, and each brand’s followers have their own preferences and moods…(so) there is no One-Size-Fits-All trick or strategy” for “perfect” social media posts, Irfan Ahmad shares the essential elements of a highly shareable blog post along with an infographic showing best practices for promoting content on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Google+.

Garrett Moon offers helpful guidance on how to increase social media traffic by sharing each piece of your content more than once on various social networks, along with five tips on how not to overdo re-sharing and risk appearing to be a spammer.

Daniel Sharkov offers helpful tips on a handful of social media tactics you should be using, covering LinkedIn (“Did you know that unlike most social networks, a rather high percentage [about 20%] of your [LinkedIn] contacts actually sees your updates?”), StumbleUpon, Google+, Triberr, and Facebook.

The always fascinating Rebecca Lieb contends that “email and search now both enjoy wallpaper status. They’ve faded into the background. This is absolutely not meant to diminish the importance or significance of either as a marketing channel…(rather) ‘wallpapering’ is a sign of maturity and essential integration into the larger marketing organization,” and that social media is now approaching that status as well. What do you think?

Everyone knows social media has become an essential channel for marketing and content distribution, but Maria Lopez Fernandez reminds readers that not all social networks are created equal: each has its own distinct characteristics, uses, and etiquette, and she provides guidance here on how to make the best use of Facebook, Twitter, and blogging – as well as how to put it all together.

Samy Simorangkir shares an infographic which details the required image dimensions for social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest, along with half a dozen “additional rules of thumb to keep in mind” for optimizing profiles on the largest networks.

Writing that online video “is a terrific way for small business owners to compete with the big brands. But creating effective (as in watchable) content and then promoting it can be intimidating,” the brilliant TJ McCue has compiled a list of 30 resources for small business, from expert online training to helpful guides, infographics, online video editing tools and more.

Scott Fasser believes it’s a “colossal mistake” to try to use social media to persuade your target audience to buy. Instead, he lays out a five-stage process for businesses to evolve their social media activities from “nascent to awesome.” At the base stage, companies are listening to buyers and watching competitors; by stage five, a company is truly executing as a social business.

Jacek Blaut explains in detail how to use Facebook Open Graph tags to obtain “a degree of control…over how information travels from a third-party website to Facebook when a page is shared (or liked, etc.),” why marketers need to know about Open Graph, and how to implement these, as well as how to use Twitter Cards to “stand out from the crowd” on Twitter by generating additional content from your tweets.